1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to message flows in a message queuing infrastructure, and more particularly to a system and method for automatically generating computer code for message flows.
2. Related Art
The information technology infrastructure of a large business can encompass a variety of different technologies, including different hardware platforms, programming languages, operating systems, and communication protocols. Middleware helps to form these different technologies into a coherent system by providing a common layer to bridge components across the infrastructure. Message queuing is a type of middleware technology that simplifies communication between the components, or nodes, of a system. A node is any point in the system that provides a service, requests a service, or connects nodes together.
Message queuing middleware, such as IBM WebSphere® MQ (WMQ) and IBM WebSphere® MQ Integrator (WMQI), provides integration for applications and Web services by allowing software applications to provide and request services residing on different nodes through the use of messages. Nodes send information and request services by sending messages to other nodes. Specifically, a message from a source node is placed in an input queue of a message broker. The message broker retrieves the message from the input queue, parses the message, and executes operations (e.g., transformation and routing) according to a message flow associated with the message. Once the operations of the message flow are completed for the message, the broker delivers the message to one or more output queues for retrieval by one or more destination nodes.
A message flow is a collection of nodes that provide small, reusable pieces of functionality for transmitting the message. Specifically, the nodes of a message flow define the series of operations and rules that the message broker executes for a message. Using message flows to communicate messages provides several advantages, particularly in a large enterprise infrastructure built on different technologies. For example, message flow nodes can be created to allow the broker to transform an input message in one format (e.g., Extensible Markup Language (XML)) to an output message in another format (e.g., MRM message). This ability to transform the format of a message facilitates communication between nodes that use different message formats. Message flow nodes can also be created to allow the broker to route an input message by, for example, setting destination queues and appending additional information to the message.
Generally, creating nodes for a message flow requires a human operator to write and test computer code. For example, WMQI allows users to create user-written nodes by inputting Extended Structured Query Language (ESQL) code into a node. ESQL is an extended version of Structured Query Language (SQL), which is a standard interactive and programming language for getting information from and updating a database. Although SQL is both an ANSI and an ISO standard, many database products support SQL with proprietary extensions to the standard language. Queries take the form of a command language that provides the ability to select, insert, update, find out the location of data, and so forth. SQL also includes a programming interface. Particularly, SQL includes a Microsoft Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) compatible interface, which allows custom applications to be built using a wide variety of programming tools or to query databases using existing ODBC-compliant applications.
In typical enterprise middleware infrastructure projects, the build time for each message flow node (in WMQI) can be relatively long. Thus development time for each message flow increases. In addition, maintaining consistency of the computer code written for different message flows from one project to another can be difficult. Moreover, errors in writing code for one project can be copied into code written for another project, causing the same defects to be repeated in the resulting message flows, which in turn increases development time due to re-work. Furthermore, it is often the case that the same or similar code written for one project cannot easily be used for another project due to the lack of knowledge of the existence of the already written code, which can result in duplication of effort.
Given the foregoing, what is needed is a system, method and computer program product for automatically generating computer code for message flows.